From being called a witch to having a bacon roll with David Bowie, the people behind Chelmsford’s independent stores certainly have some tales to tell.

Chelmsford might be expanding and attracting huge name brands from around the world, but the city’s many independent shops have a huge part to play in its success.

These are the little stores that been started by local people and have flourished through sheer hard work and passion for what they sell.

Through blood, sweat and tears, these shop owners have faced the highs and lows of the retail industry and have had to face their critics along the way.

We chatted to the owners of five of Chelmsford’s independent stores about their experiences:

Calliorphic is also known as Stuffs A Must (Image: Calliorphic)

Calliorphic

171-172 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford

One of the main reasons why Fiona Milligan started her gift shop is because of her hair. She had dreadlocks and no one would give her a ‘proper job’.

“I was a typist but no one would employ me unless I wore a wig,” she said. “I had a mohican once and then dreadlocks. I had this idea that there was nowhere in Chelmsford to buy nice little gifts – the sort of things that me and my friends wanted to buy.”

So Fiona and her partner at the time decided to set up a gift shop in 1992, and called it Calliophic, which means ‘beautiful mysticism'. It sold a mixture of gifts, jewellery, candles, incense and crystals.

They shared a premises with what was then a fancy dress shop in Moulsham Street. They used to drive all over London and Birmingham to pick up stock on Sundays and bring it back and they couldn’t wait to get it on the shelves.

Calliorphic has been described as a little treasure trove inside

“It was hard to get off the ground at the beginning but it was exciting,” Fiona remembered.

“We went to wholesalers and craft fairs and tried to build up a name for ourselves. Over the first few years, our main competition were places like In-Lines and Nectar in the town centre.

"We used to tap into the latest trends – our first big trend was Suns and Moons in 1992, we sold everything for that, mugs, duvet sets. We started on the back of that trend really. We tried to be that trendy shop that you could get lovely bits for yourself or your family and friends from.”

It was hard work though. For quite a few years Fiona had no free time at all. If she wasn’t working in the shop, she was trawling wholesalers for the latest gems. As the shop sold incense and dream catchers, they also faced some confusion about what kind of shop they were.

The stores sells a range of Gothic and Celtic items

“People used to call us the ‘hippy shop’ and said that we sold ‘witchy’ things,” Fiona laughed.

“In the old days people thought it was only witches that burnt candles. Now everyone does it, it’s much more acceptable. When we first opened, for years our only customers were women, we were too witchy for the men.

"Now it’s about 50-50 between men and women. Our most popular product is probably incense, we sell it every day, and that’s to men and women. Men take care of themselves and their homes more now.”

There's a huge range of gifts inside the store

After a few years, Fiona’s partner left the business and she took it over by herself, although they remain friends.

Calliorphic is like an Aladdin’s Cave these days, packed with trinkets and curiosities as well as incense and crystals to help people in their daily lives.

“When I first started out, I was open-minded but now I am a total believer in the mystical side of the shop,” Fiona said.

“People come to ask our advice on all sorts of issues. Customers ask for the best incense or a product to cleanse their home from spirits. Sometimes people bring in pictures of their ghosts to show me.

“People want to get something to help someone they are visiting in hospital or to put on a loved one’s grave. Customers come in saying they are unlucky in love or they can’t get pregnant. There are crystals to help with many things, like amethyst for health and rose quartz for love and fertility. Dreamcatchers are also a popular gift for babies and children. A lot of the things in the shop have meaning."

Incense is the best-selling product in Calliorphic

Fiona has had to change with the times though so she started the shop’s website 15 years ago and now sells many of her products on eBay.

"Even 10 years ago, not everyone felt safe shopping online but now everybody does it. It helps subsidise the shop.”

She is still passionate about the shop though and says you can’t replace the personal service they offer there.

“People sometimes just need a bit of strength or direction, I think we’re the first port of call before someone goes to a tarot card reader,” Fiona said.

“I never judge anybody, whatever you need to get you through the day is fine by me.”

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Intense Records

Jon Smith had a very good reason for starting his own business back in 1999 – he wanted to get his hands on cheap records.

He was one of those entrepreneurial young people who started up a company, Intense Records, while still at university.

“I was DJing at the time and in those days, if you wanted to be a DJ you had to have vinyl,” Jon said.

“I was into Drum and Bass and I used to go to London to the Drum and Bass record shop and queue up to get the best records. You had to go to the parties, hear the records and then try to be the first to buy them.

"I realised if I could set up some accounts with suppliers I could get the records at cost price. So I set the business up from my bedroom and did mail order. I also sold records to my friends and other DJs.

"I was doing business management at university and all the coursework was supposed to be based on a pretend business, but I just used my own real business and learnt as I went along.”

Jon Smith started Intense Records because he wanted cheap music

Jon quickly ended up sharing a shop space with an existing record company in Chelmsford called Soundproof, and in 2003, branched out with his own shop in The Viaducts – where he still is now.

“At first the business wasn’t even a money-maker,” he said.

“I just wanted to get the records before everyone else. But once we opened the shop it was different. It was purely a Drum and Bass shop at the start. You could do that back then, the rave scene was huge. People would spend all day queuing at the Drum and Bass shops in London.”

When Soundproof closed, Jon branched out to cover some of the genres they had stocked – mainly House, Garage, Techno and Dub Step.

The shop was rammed every Saturday and busy in the week, and for years, it flourished. However, when MP3s became big in the late 1990s, things changed. Vinyl struggled and sales dropped. So Intense Records expanded further to include all genres.

By 2013, many mainstream music shops stopped selling vinyl altogether. At one point, Jon’s accountant told him to shut up shop, but John refused, committed to the medium and its superior quality.

Then suddenly, along came Record Store Day – a phenomenon which started in America and then trickled over into Europe and the UK. Record Store Day grew quickly and saw independent record shops all over the UK selling exclusive and rare pieces of vinyl to collectors. You can only take part if you’re an independent and the idea caught on.

David Bowie committed to it early on and always released two or three pieces of rare vinyl for the event, and Jon was lucky enough to get some of them.

“On our first Record Store Day, we probably had about 30 people in the shop,” he admitted.

“Now we get 300 people queuing up before the shop’s even open. Some people camp out overnight to make sure they get the rare vinyl they want. There might only be 300 copies of a piece of vinyl in circulation, so if we get two or three copies, you have to be here early.”

People queue around the block on Record Store Day to get that rare vinyl

In recent years, among the most popular pieces of rare vinyl have been a rare Abba release that saw people queuing from 6pm the previous evening to get their hands on it. There was also a rare copy of the single Africa by Toto which was shaped like the continent.

Jon also managed to get his hands on a couple of copies of a piece of sought-after Led Zeppelin vinyl – a 7 inch copy of Rock and Roll – unusual because Led Zeppelin rarely released anything on 7 inch.

Record Store Day also made Jon realise that people were interested in vinyl from all genres – so he branched out again to include everything from rock and funk to hip hop and indie. He now stocks all music genres right across the board.

“Record Store Day is the highlight of the year for us now,” Jon said. “We do three months’ business in one day. We are the only independent record shop in Chelmsford now so we’re the only place that takes part.”

Jon credits Record Store Day, as well as the fact that younger generations got bored of listening to poor quality, compressed music files on their mobiles, for the recent resurgence of vinyl, which has seen Intense Records rocket back to its heyday in terms of customers, sales and popularity.

There are lots of guests DJs at Intense Records

“For the purists, vinyl will always be better,” he said. “I think people have got bored of just a download. It’s just a file on your computer. With vinyl you get the artwork, the sleeve, all the information. You get the experience of going into a shop and finding what you want, you take it home and really listen to it – you have to turn it over.

"Of course the sound is so much better – downloads are hugely compressed files. It’s a bit rude that all the shops are selling vinyl again now because it’s suddenly popular – we’ve always sold it because we love it.”

The vinyl resurgence has seen the customer base at Intense Records change beyond recognition. In the early days it was DJs and Drum and Base fans – now it’s everyone from 13-year-olds to 70-year-olds, who love all kinds of music.

There are some rare pieces of vinyl in-store

“We used to get parents come here with their kids and they would say ‘Dad, what is that? Why are you buying a giant CD?’ " Jon laughed.

“Now parents and grandparents are digging out their old vinyl collections and dusting them off and listening to them with their kids. We have teenagers in here who know more about some bands than we do.”

Jon is delighted with the vinyl resurgence – both because he can see so many people enjoying the thing he’s most passionate about, and of course because it’s boosted his business.

Intense Records started because DJ Jon wanted cheap music

“In the early days, it was mental,” Jon said. “It was busy all day long on a Saturday. Then, in the real downtime, when it was really bad, we would sometimes go two days without seeing a customer. This was when my accountant advised me to close but I said ‘What else would I do? I love it.’ In the last two years we’ve come back to where we started, possibly a bit busier. I never expected it to come full circle and it feels amazing.”

Intense Records also holds a record fair once a month, where a large collection of rare vinyl is available from the store and a selection of independent sellers. The record fairs are held at Intense Records and at The Alehouse pub next door. As well as the vinyl, there is beer, gourmet BBQ, live bands and DJs.

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Many of the Rock the Frock dresses are exclusive to the boutique (Image: Dan Eden Photography)

Rock The Frock

35-36 Viaduct Road, Chelmsford

When Karen Whybro got engaged in 2011, she couldn’t wait to start shopping for her dream wedding dress.

Unfortunately it didn’t exist.

Karen initially wanted a shorter, tea-length dress but couldn’t find one in any of the Essex boutiques. She then searched the racks for a softer dress with a vintage feel but couldn’t find that either.

“I was disappointed and I ended up with a dress I liked, but it was quite a common style from a big American brand and that wasn’t what I’d hoped to find,” Karen said.

At this point, Karen was working as a primary school teacher but she had already gone part-time to run her own vintage tea party business and to set up the Essex Vintage Wedding Fair. While working on the wedding fair, Karen realised she could find suppliers for pretty much everything – crockery, caterers, venues – but no dresses. There were a few boutiques that sold vintage-style dresses but they were all in London, not Essex.

So Karen set about creating a wedding dress shop that would be filled with the kind of dresses, and the type of experience, that she felt she’d missed out on as a bride. She left teaching for good and opened her Rock the Frock bridal in Battlesbridge in early 2014.

“I just did it,” Karen said. “I had some contacts from the wedding fair and I contacted two of my favourites and found the sorts of dresses that my brides wanted. I also trawled social media, blogs and Pinterest to find dresses. Even in the four and a half years we’ve been open, the business has changed a lot. When I first started we had a lot of 50s style dresses but that trend has gone.

“Now we mainly stock boho, unstructured, floaty dresses. It’s a vintage, informal feel and we also have coloured dresses, jumpsuits, trousers and separates. We have established ourselves as the brand to come to if you want something different. We have no corsetry, no lace-up backs and no meringues.”

Karen's dresses are aimed at brides who want something a little different (Image: Dan Eden Photography)

As Rock the Frock’s reputation grew, Karen moved to a bigger premises in Viaduct Road, Chelmsford, and she found that brides were coming from all over the country, and even internationally, to visit her boutique. Karen then took the decision to franchise out the business: there’s already a franchise in Berkshire and there are two more opening in Cheshire and Sussex this autumn.

Nearly five years on, Karen says there are still challenges running an independent business.

“Someone asked me the other day if it’s easier now that we’re established,” she said. “But I’m not sure it is as we still have to constantly move forward and change with the times.

"The industry is obviously fashion-led, we don’t stock either of the two designers that we started out with now. We also have to keep up with the online competition and the fact that there are so many cheap, knock-offs available on the internet.

“The difference with our dresses is that they are all hand-made. They are all exclusive – either to the UK or if they are stocked elsewhere in the UK, the designer will have made five or six dresses just for us that you can’t get anywhere else."

Rock The Frock now stocks a range of designers including Otaduy, Lucy Can’t Dance, Mila Mira, Leanne Marshall, Velvet Johnstone and Muscat Bridal. The dresses range from £1,000 - £4,000 and the most expensive dress in the shop currently is the ‘Mae’ dress by Chantel Lauren. “The skirt is hand-painted and it comes in blue, pink, ivory and platinum,” Karen said. “Of course it’s more expensive because it’s hand-painted, they are really incredible dresses.”

One of the best parts of the wedding industry is that you are constantly dealing with positive customers.

“I definitely wish I had had this shop when I got married. One of the best parts of the job is when brides come into the shop or find at a wedding fair and they say ‘At last, this is it.'

“It’s so fulfilling when a bride comes in and they realise that we are their brand and we reflect their individual style. Brides don’t have to fit into a traditional box.”

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The fireplace industry has changed a lot over the years

Crammond’s Designs

156 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford

There can’t be many independent shop owners in Chelmsford who’ve had such a colourful journey to opening a store as Peter Crammond.

Peter is now the owner of Crammond’s Designs fireplace store in Moulsham Street and has been for 34 years, but up until the early 90s, his life was very different.

His first real job was owning fashion stores in Carnaby Street – when the area was the trendiest place in London. Peter sold mostly women’s clothes, but some men’s, and mixed with the coolest people in London. He had bacon rolls with David Bowie and often chatted to various members of The Bee Gees.

Peter, who was born in South London, worked with his old friend, renowned designer Aristos Constantinou and featured in films made about Carnaby Street. Then he met his first wife Paulette and they moved to California. Peter stayed in fashion for a while but ended up managing a rock band called Savage, involving lots of infamous ‘block parties’ and booze. His marriage to Paulette ended but they are still friends, and she’s now a leading make-up artist in Hollywood, working on films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Kong: Skull Island.

Peter Crammond started out in the fashion industry

After that, Peter lived and worked in Italy and Switzerland, before heading back to the UK. Peter ended up taking a job delivering fireplace accessories to other businesses and one day a fireplace shop owner in Benfleet asked him to run his shop for him.

Not long after that, in 1995, another man in the fireplace business offered to sell Peter his shop. He took it and ended up owning his first ever fireplace store – Crammond’s Designs in Chelmsford. The business expanded quickly and he launched a wholesale arm to the company and bought a large warehouse in Maldon. Crammond’s even had a branch in Russia, but that closed down during the recession.

Although he’s now downsized and semi-retired, Peter still sells wholesale to many big-name building firms, as well as all of the customers who come in through the shop floor. Peter has employed some of the same fitters for 25 years and is proud of the fact that none of his employees have ever left.

Crammond's sells lots of chic, contemporary designs

Many of their customers insist on having the same fitters back time and time again, with one lady from Essex going to extremes to get her favourite fitters on repeat jobs. “This one customer, we started off fitting her fireplaces in her home and it went really well,” Peter said.

“The second time she called back, she said she’d moved to Norfolk, and I told her we don’t normally go that far but as she was a valued customer, we’d do it if she paid for the diesel.

“A few years later she moved to Cornwall, and she insisted on paying for the same fitters to go to her house to install the new fireplaces, and she put them up for a few days. After that she rang again and said she’d moved to the south of France. She said she knew we did a good job and so she paid for the fitters’ flights and she put them up for a week, and gave them food and wine. It was hard getting them back from that one,” he joked.

Crammond's sells lots of contemporary designs

Over the years, what people want in a fireplace has changed a lot, Peter said.

“When we started, everyone wanted Victorian-style fireplaces, but now most people want a more chic, contemporary feel. Although there are Victorian houses in Chelmsford so some people still ask for them.”

Out of all the places he’s lived over the years, Peter is happy to have settled in Essex.

“I like the Essex way of thinking,” he said. “I used to live in Leigh-on-Sea and I got talking to a guy in a pub who told me he’d recently lost everything - his job, his money, his house. But, he said to me, ‘Do you know what, I’ll be alright because I’ve got an idea’.

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Rayleigh Hi Fi Sound and Vision

216 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford

Rayleigh Hi Fi was born when two friends were having lunch together and said ‘Let’s open a hi fi shop.’

The two original founders, Raymond and Lawrence, both worked for Charringtons oil company in Canvey Island. They were mates and often chatted about their love of music and technology and how much they’d love to open their own shop. Over a sandwich one day, they decided to go for it.

They both remortgaged their houses to fund the business, which pretty much exclusively sold record players and hifis.

“It was only a few thousand pounds but that was a lot of money in those days,” said sales director, Rob Goddard.

“The first store was in Rayleigh of course – hence the name. One of the founders ran the shop while the other stayed on at Charringtons and they did installations in the evenings. They were one of the first retailers in the country to stock top names in the industry like Linn and Rega, which is manufactured in Southend.

The team provides complete Smart home solutions

Their vision was to sell the high-quality equipment to hi-fi enthusiasts and to help people get the best possible performance from it.

“We believe in providing the best personal customer service,” said Rob. “We don’t believe in ‘stack ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap’. All of the guys who work here love their music and their tech and we wouldn’t sell anything here that we wouldn’t want in our own homes.”

After a few years, Rayleigh Hi Fi decided to expand and opened up their second store in Chelmsford, where they still are today. Things have changed in that time though as the company moved with the times, leading to an eventual focus on Smart home technology and home cinema rooms. They even changed their name to Rayleigh Sound and Vision, although the original sign is still outside and the people of Chelmsford still call them Rayleigh Hi Fi.

“Thirty years ago, we were all sales advisors, but now there has been a complete shift and most of the team are out installing,” Rob said. “There are never more than two of us in the store at a time now.”

Inside Rayleigh Hi Fi's private cinema room

Their technology now includes the industry-leading TVs from Loewe worth £15,000 – the nearest place outside of Rayleigh Hi Fi you’re likely to find that kind of TV is in Harrods. They can also set up home Smart systems which allow you to control your TV, hifi, lighting, heating, security, garage and pool cover from one tablet.

“A lot of our customers are music and film hobbyists,” Rob said. “They want to sit at home and watch their favourite film with the best possible sound and the best possible picture quality they can. We can give people better sound quality than most cinema brands. Yes there are times when you might be able to save a bit of money online, but you are buying a product in a box. With us, we can get you between 20-40 per cent more quality from the same product with the right settings and calibration. People always come back to us, we do so much repeat business and recommendations. We show every family member in the household how to use every system.

Rayleigjh Hi Fi sell some of the most expensive TVs in the industry, like this Loewe Bild TV, which is around £13,999 (Image: Loewe)

“We’ve been here a long time and everyone knows us in the city. We get people come back to us from other areas and they are surprised but happy to see that we are still here. It’s a bit of a meeting point for local people too, they say ‘meet you outside Rayleigh Hi Fi'.

“Having us here has been good for Chelmsford, we do bring people to the town because we provide a specialist service.

Both of the founding partners have now retired, although one is still involved financially, and the team make sure they continue their legacy every single day.

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“It’s a nice story,” said Rob, who joined the company as a teenager and had now been there for 33 years.

“The founders were friends with a mutual interest and they just decided to do it. They never borrowed a penny and that’s the same now. If people want the best customer service and to get the best out of their products, they come to us.

"At the end of the day, if it wasn’t for people making really good films and really good records that the enthusiasts want to listen to, we would go out of business.”